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Ubuntu chief ushers in the age of Intrepid Ibex

Goat boy's flehmen response

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Canonical chief Mark Shuttleworth has revealed the name of the next Ubuntu release - Meeky Meerkat.

Er, well, it's really called Intrepid Ibex and will likely arrive in Oct. as Ubuntu 8.10.

It sounds as if Intrepid Ibex will center on laptop features such a tool to switch automatically between Wi-Fi and dial-in services.

"A particular focus for us will be pervasive internet access, the ability to tap into bandwidth whenever and wherever you happen to be," Shuttleworth wrote in an e-mail. "No longer will you need to be a tethered, domesticated animal - you'll be able to roam (and goats do roam!) the wild lands and access the web through a variety of wireless technologies. We want you to be able to move from the office, to the train, and home, staying connected all the way."

In addition, Shuttleworth wrote,

"Our desktop offering will once again be a focal point as we re-engineer the user interaction model so that Ubuntu works as well on a high-end workstation as it does on a feisty little subnotebook. We'll also be reaching new peaks of performance - aiming to make the mobile desktop as productive as possible."

Shuttleworth closed out his call to arms with a plea to give Ibex "horns."

Canonical plans to ship Hardy Heron (8.04) in April, which will mark its second long-term support (LTS) release. While Canonical pushes out fresh iterations of Ubuntu every six months, only the select few versions of the operating system receive LTS status. That LTS tag ensures that bug fixes and proper support will be available for five years on server versions of the OS and three years for desktop code.

The ibex is a goatish type creature, which is particularly noteworthy because of the males' impressive horns.

We're informed that a male ibex will try and tempt a female into sex by licking and sniffing the lass and by issuing a low scream. It's suspected that Bono responds to a similar ritual. Sometimes the female will demonstrate her interest by urinating or by ramming the male with her horns. The male then returns the favor through the flehmen response, which is a curling of the upper lip. This goes on for about 30 minutes until Bono shows up or the ibexes get it on. ®